I seriously considered this card a month back when I was debating between it and the 4850 but at the time this was almost $75 more than the 4850 so my frugal self couldn't resist the temptation of a great sale and took the red pill. I'm not sorry I went with ATI but every now and again I sort of wish I went with the EVGA 9800 GTX+ because of their awesome customer service, warranty and the fact that this card averages 5500 ppd while the HD 4850 only gets 3200ppd at [email protected]

In retrospect EVGA's trade up program turned out to be a non issue as the prices have steeply risen in the last month so trading up would have been a losing proposition with our dollar declining so sharply. But I see any new buyer actually getting a nice boost if they bought this card now as I suspect prices should once again normalize making any future trade up options more attractive.

I still think Nvidias attempt to go head to head with the ATI 4850 could use some more competative pricing as they are still currently $30 more but with the added service I think most would side with the Nvidia.

One thing I missed in your review was the exact overclocking potential. I see you added it as a Pro in your conclusion but I must have missed what results you managed to flesh out. We'll just have to stay tuned to this thread for your OC'ing results. I've never taken much stock in reviewers stating stock overclocks with GPUs in their reviews because the maximum ceiling achievable is often drastically different from one card to another, so I'm happy you decided to post the results outside of the review itself.

For the overclocking: the original card I received (from a different manufacturer) died during overclocking as the conclusion was being written. It was running at speeds higher than I would have expected and the Pro in overclocking slipped through at the end.

Anyways, the overclocking will be posted in this thread within the next day or so.

Another great review of a great card, makes me glad i got the sc version when it was on sale since it comes with a few more accessories in the case. I can get my card to around 820 core 1944 shader and i think 1250 on the memory, since thats a reference card it may not be able to push quite that far but i know that was my limit on this one. Its not even the temps that limit the oc, i could be gaming at around 65c with my max oc if i turned up the fan, any higher and it artifacts.

Thanks for the fair review. (I was disappointed by another site's panning of the 9800GTX+ when they compared it to the 4870 as if they were the same price - ?).
I picked up my 9800GTX+ for ~ $160 before the CDN dollar tanked and I'm very happy with it. Ovr'clks up to 840/2400 nicely 4 me and stays relatively quiet and cool. 15,300 3dMark06